#21 - America's Fire Chief
“Brad, you gotta understand, in the 1970s there was no comms on fires. It was just a bunch of people taking independent action.”
-Brian Crandell1
“Bruno used to say, ‘if we keep operating like this it’s gonna kill us.’ That wasn’t hyperbole. He was rescusitaed twice on fires.”
-Kevin Conant
“People often blame accidents on poor communication. But Brunacini saw the deeper issue. It’s really about command. He knew that. ”
-Brian Crandell
America’s Fire Chief
While command and control was emerging as a trend in the wildland world (late ‘70s to early ‘90s), a parallel trend was unfolding in fire departments across the country.
The American Fire Service includes tens of thousands of agencies. The wildland sub-culture is one part of that. So far on our expedition, we’ve focused heavily on wildland culture, but now let’s look at the broader American Fire Service. The best way to do this is by looking into the work of Alan Brunacini from the Phoenix Fire Department (PFD).
When FIRESCOPE was developing the Incident Command System (ICS) in California (early 1970s), Brunacini went out and studied what they were doing. He knew Phoenix needed something like ICS, but it had to be adapted to the operational realities he faced in the city.
So he developed the Fire Ground Command (FGC) system. He tested and implemented it on his department, then traveled the country teaching other leaders about it.
Brunacini was a dominant thought leader in this era, and was held in such high regard that firefighters across the country started calling him “America’s Fire Chief.”2 So by looking at what he had to say about command and communication, we can get a window into this important piece of fire culture.
Why Command Matters
Brunacini’s Fire Ground Command (FGC) system put most of the emphasis on the individual commander. Here’s why:
This strong focus on the incident commander emerged out of our having to actually retrain, reprogram, and restructure all of our real, live, in-place, nineteen-seventies, Phoenix Fire Department fire officers who had performed traditional command behaviors since 1886 (PFD founded). These guys (all guys in those days) were great fire officers and capable firefighters. They had the knowledge, experience, and inclination required to blast a fire out (mostly fires in those days)—but they never received much (or any) formal IC training, and they never had the opportunity to work within a structured command system (simply, because, in those days, there was no such IC/ICS thing). Their old-time, fire-ground boss role models practiced free enterprise, aerobic (running) command. They typically did high-volume, face-to-face communications (yelling). When they arrived on the scene they generally blasted out of their sedans (sometimes before the car actually stopped*) and quickly moved physically right to where the problem was occurring. Based on that very active, intrepid approach, they got scuffed up a lot, just like the nozzleman (whom they visited frequently).
* I can recall many old-time incidents that were littered with chief officers’ response cars, abandoned in the middle of the street, with the driver’s side door open, and the warning lights still rotating and blinking … those vehicles told the story of how command was managed in those days.3
He’s engaging in a very tactful form of mockery to make his point: The alternative to strong command is chaos. Unprofessional… Dangerous… Embarrassing… Chaos.
The Role of the Commander
In his classic book Fire Command4 he explains the job of the IC this way:
The Incident Commander (IC) is called upon to orchestrate and support the manual labor required to produce an effective and standard incident outcome, so the command functions must (if they are to be effective) be closely connected to all of the moving parts that make up the incident response. Given the intimate relationship between command performance and our tactical/operational effort, a presentation of the IC’s job, expressed in command functions, also does double duty by producing a fairly complete description of what happens on the tactical and task level of operations. As we trudge through the eight command functions, we must continually connect the IC doing his/her job, with the actual physical labor that quickly solves the customer’s problem. …[t]he connection between command and action had better go both ways. While our focus must always be directed toward tactically solving the customer’s very practical problem, we live in a dream world if we believe that we can consistently produce effective, safe action simply by shooting aggressive responders out of the free-enterprise cannon into Mrs. Smith’s burning kitchen. Successful operations require a lucid, competent IC, actively in attendance, who can pull the trigger at the right time and aim the command cannon in the right direction.”5
So, to summarize how Brunacini saw command: The Incident Commander fights the fire or solves the problem, and he accomplishes that by directing physical labor. This is an active, ongoing process in which the IC is taking action on the fire, and firefighters are intermediaries in the IC’s effort to control the fire. The firefighters themselves are like cannon balls with the IC actively aiming the cannon.
Brunacini knew this was different from the role of the IC on a large campaign wildland fire, which the Incident Command System (ICS) was originally designed for. In that context, the IC is more like a manager or coordinator of commanders and resources. The decision cycle for an IC in that environment could be hours or even a full day, and major decisions have to be made several levels below the IC. But Brunacini is writing for a different operational environment—the local house fire, for example—where decisions are immediate and the decision cycle takes seconds or minutes. That’s why he called his system “the local Incident Management System (IMS)” to distinguish it from ICS, and the IC’s role is different in each system.
Communication = a function of command
What’s the role of communication here? Primarily it’s how the commander gets orders to other people. In other words, it’s a function of command.
In “FUNCTIONS OF COMMAND: CHAPTER 3: COMMUNICATIONS,” he says:
The third basic fire ground command function involves initiating, maintaining, and controlling the communications process. Effective incident communications provides the very practical connection between and among the strategic-command level of the IC, the tactical level of sector officers, and the task-operational level of the workers. Communications also becomes the IC’s link to the tactical and support command team and to the outside world through dispatch. Incident communications is the information “carrier” the team uses to connect and commit resources, and to create effective action.6
So communication here is a carrier, moving information from the commander to the people doing things. Communication is the medium through which the commander creates action.
Communication goes one way: from the commander, to the people taking action.
And, fundamentally, the relationship that matters most is between the commander and the fire itself.
Brunacini did say “the connection between command and action had better go both ways,” (p. 15) but look at what he meant: He was saying you have to take in what the fire is doing and be responsive to it, as opposed to just acting. That’s what he meant by “both ways”: He’s saying the connection between the commander and the fire goes both ways. He’s not talking about communication between the commander and the firefighters.7
Communication = a byproduct of command
Brunacini also saw communication as a byproduct of good command. This flips how we normally think:
Communications becomes a reflection of almost every part of incident activity. Jumping on communications as the major problem when things go wrong is fairly predictable and happens a lot. It should be a strong indicator of how critical effective communication is to virtually everything that occurs (particularly on and around the command level) during incident operations. Simply, if almost any incident activity is out of balance, a problem quickly emerges in some part of the incident communications process. Therefore, communications becomes one of the major pieces of command and operational effectiveness, particularly among the perceptions (and feelings of the players). The fact that communications is our favorite incident problem, and the fact that it is so easy and familiar to blame confusing stuff on communications, shows the importance of having a strong, well-practiced “commo” package that is closely connected to and integrated into the entire incident management and operational plan.8
He’s saying: When your system is running well, good communication happens. But when something is wrong, communication breaks down. Communication failures are lagging indicators of other command problems, not leading indicators. Or in other words, it’s better to think of communication failures as an effect, rather than a cause of problems in the system.
Profound point.
NOTE: Thanks to Brian Crandell and Kevin Conant for your comments on this post, and for our conversations. I’ve learned a lot from you both.
Quotes from Brian Crandell and Kevin Conant are from personal conversations in March and April 2023.
In person he preferred to go by “Alan” or “Bruno,” rarely “Chief Brunacini.” He tried to keep things informal and personable, despite his position and eventual fame.
Brunacini, A. V. 2002. Fire Command; The Essentials of Local IMS. 2nd Ed., p. 8.
His 1st Edition, Fire Command, was released in 1985.
You can find both editions at his son Nick’s bookshop.
p. 15
p. 139
Brian Crandell offered this observation:
“Bruno used communications to make command effective. He used commo both ways. He used commo to gather info (listening) about critical fireground factors (from CAN reports, usually from the task and tactical levels of work — fire companies and Sectors/Divisions/Groups). He also used commo to share fire ground intelligence and provide strategic direction and action plans (usually listening/observing more than talking).”
This is good detail.
Brunacini’s view of communication is not purely one-way/top-down.
But, as we continue on our expedition, we are going to see firefighters advocating models of communication and command that are drastically different; they will attempt to create two-way, or even bottom-up approaches. We will hear about things like collaboration and decentralization. This might sound a little wild now, but there were operational and historic realities that drove this thinking.
Among the philosophies/approaches we are going to look at, Brunacini’s is heavily weighted for information to flow from the top down (again, this is due to the operational environment he worked in).
p. 139